It was suggested some time ago that replacing the normally inelastic lace of a shoe with a single elastic lace or a plurality of elastic laces should make it possible to insert the foot into the shoe and remove the foot from the shoe without untying or loosening the lace. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 1,898,225 granted Feb. 21, 1933 to L. G. Szabo for "SHOE LACE". This patent suggests the use of a single lace or a series of laces made entirely of rubber and having lateral heads at the ends of the laces. One of the deficiencies of the Szabo lace is that the soft rubber lateral heads on the ends of the laces cannot be relied upon to hold the ends of the laces in engagement with the shoe. There is a strong tendency for the lateral heads to collapse and pull out of the shoe lace holes in the shoes.
An earlier U.S. Pat. No. 1,595,630, granted Aug. 10, 1926 to R. F. Stockton for "SHOE SPRING LACE", discloses the use of a series of helical springs to connect opposed shoe opening eyelets. U.S. Pat. No. 1,966,135 granted July 10, 1934 to M. Reh for "RESILIENT GRIP FOR SHOES" proposes, for a similar purpose, the use of two loops of elastic material connected by a metal link and washers, or disks, to prevent the loops from pulling through the shoe eyelets. Although possibly more reliable than the Szabo lace, the Stockton and Reh lace replacements are both fairly complex and expensive to manufacture.
There continues to be a need for an inexpensive and reliable shoe fastener to replace conventional laces and permit the foot to be inserted in and removed from the shoe without undoing the fastener.